What Is the Mysterious Pyramid on Mars?

Strange things are out there. Surely you all remember when we posted this a few years ago: First, Face on Mars. Now, Arrow on Titan. NASA tried to explain it all away, but questions linger. Then the Daily Mail, a tabloid which is the UK’s second biggest-selling daily newspaper, gave us more news last year about which we wrote Obama’s Face on Mars!

In their latest bizarre claim, conspiracy theorists say they have found a replica of one of Egypt’s Great Pyramids on Mars. Citing the ‘near-perfect design and shape’, they say the pyramid could be evidence that an ancient civilisation once lived on the red planet

YouTube channel, ParanormalCrucible, used video footage taken by Nasa’s Curiosity Rover on May 7 to back up its claims. ‘None of the Curiosity Rover’s subsequent photos taken at 20 to 30 sec intervals in the following few minutes and the subsequent photos hours later, included the object,’ wrote UFO site Exopolitics. ‘It appears that the Nasa operators of Curiosity deliberately chose not to take another photo or zoom in on the pyramid. ‘If they however did so, none of these subsequent photos were released to the general public.’

The Daily Mail links to some dubious places, so we’ll let you click over there if you want to pursue their sources. But they certainly make this sound like a NASA coverup! Then we’re told:

ParanormalCrucible goes further, claiming the ‘near perfect design and shape’ means the pyramid is: ‘the result of intelligent design and certainly not a trick of light and shadow’.

Aaaargh!! Intelligent design! It certainly looks like it from the NASA photograph which adorns our post. We copied it from the newspaper, assuming it’s not copyrighted. Let’s read on:

But the story strikes a note with conspiracy theorists who believe that civilisations, including our own, have secretly visited Mars and established colonies there.

In November, a woman named ‘Jackie’ called into American radio station, Coast to Coast AM, with a ‘confession’ that she had witnessed suited men running on the red planet in 1979. Jackie said she was working as part of a ‘downstairs’ team downloading telemetry from a Viking Lander when she saw the humans via live feed. ‘I wonder if you could solve a 27-year-old mystery for me,’ she asked the presenter. ‘That old Viking rover was running around. ‘Then I saw two men in space suits – not the bulky suits we normally used, but they looked protective. They came over the horizon walking to the Viking Explorer.’

Jackie’s story sounds credible, doesn’t it? What else is NASA hiding from us? The news continues:

According to Jackie, six other Nasa workers saw the two humans walking on the red planet’s surface. Jackie’s claim follows a similarly bizarre theory by physicist Dr John Brandenburg who believes an ancient civilisation on Mars was wiped out by a nuclear attack from another alien race.

Dr Brandenburg says ancient Martians known as Cydonians and Utopians were massacred in the attack – and evidence of the genocide can still be seen today. He claims his theory could explain the Fermi Paradox – namely why, if the universe is abundant with life, we haven’t heard anything from anyone else yet. He warns, though, that we need to be fearful of an attack on our own planet, and should mount a manned mission to Mars to know what we’re up against.

Wow — this is really exciting news! We’ll be watching for updates, so stay tuned to this blog!

14 responses to “What Is the Mysterious Pyramid on Mars?”

Conspiracy theorists are politically worth their weight in gold. Having pseudo grass roots groups that are able to so easily distract otherwise potentially intelligent people from the actually issues must save so much money and time.

Concerning the pyramid however, I’d be more concerned with the abandoned wreck of a spaceship that’s is so obvious to the upper right of the pyramid. How do those razor sharp conspiracy tuned eyes miss the real gold every time?

Dr Brandenburg says ancient Martians known as Cydonians and Utopians were massacred in the attack…

As a linguist, I’m wondering how these “ancient Martians” happened to choose name for themselves (Cydonians and Utopians) that come from ancient earth cultures (ancient Greek and Roman cultures respectively.)

Of course, when Hollywood is telling a story, we expect concessions to the target audience (English)–and scifi writers like to use Greek, Latin, and ancient Hebrew. (Star Trek used lots of noble sounding Greek and Hebrew names.) But why would ancient Martians use an Earth language for naming people groups?)

There is an area of Mars which astronomers have long called Cydonia, but I don’t think Utopia is a Mars place name in any astronomers’ registry.

As for Cydonia, this is the location of the (in)famous “face” which didn’t look at all face-like when better pictures finally became available.

The imagination of Richard C. Hoagland filled Cydonia with pyramids, ruined cities and crumbling fortresses, and Dr. Brandenburg seems to be working in the same tradition. Undoubtedly it is the grand Hoagland tradition that makes him particularly interested in Cydonia, a name that in the context of Martian nomenclature has about the same special ring as “Roswell” or “Transsylvania” — IF you belong to a certain school of conspiracy theorists.

The fact that the image of a pyramid strikes us as a picture of an intelligently designed object runs counter to the Discovery Institute’s claim that *complex* specified information is the sure sign of ID. Often, as in this case, simplicity is the hallmark of design. A pyramid can be modeled by euclidian geometry. Anyone trying to imitate natural rock formations must use fractal geometry–much more complex.

An example: as I paddled along a stream the other day, I saw an upturned boat stored in the woods up above the stream bank. The color was different from the vegetation around it, but the main thing that distinguished it as the product of intelligent design was its smooth regularity. It was much simpler than the leaves and branches of natural vegetation.

As AR. pointed out,
1) The Viking landers were stationary, not rovers;
2) it was all the Viking landers could do to transmit a still photo, line by agonizing line. They did not have the transmitting capacity for live video.

As for the claim that ancient Martians were wiped out in a nuclear attack, there should be plenty of unique isotopes left on Mars that can only be formed in a nuclear blast if that were the case.

And the pyramid? If it actually was photographed by the Curiosity rover, why oh why would NASA keep it a secret? This would be the biggest news of all time! NASA would be trumpeting this discovery 24/7 to drum up support for a manned mission to Mars. Conspiracy “theorists” just don’t think.

No, retiredsciguy, it’s not that they don’t think. It’s that they think different.

You and I think that the purpose of NASA is to explore space and to make the results public. They think that the purpose of NASA is to find and communicate with aliens and to keep the results secret, so that our true masters can rule over us better. You and I think it’s a scientific endeavour. They think it’s a political conspiracy.

They think that, not because they’re dimbulbs. On the contrary, often they can be extremely ingenious. They think it because they’re whackos. This is not to their credit. Whackos are far more dangerous than the merely dim.

‘Dr Brandenburg says ancient Martians known as Cydonians and Utopians were massacred in the attack ”
What a load of crap everyone knows the Martians are Barsoomians, and John Carter kicked Martian ass!!!

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